Ari Wallach: 'Forget short-termism: it's time to think longpath'

This article was taken from the April 2013 issue
of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print
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When Abbot John de Sais laid the
first stone of a church in a tiny central England town in 1118, he
set in motion a construction project that would culminate in 1237
with the completion of Peterborough Cathedral -- the grandest
structure in England at the time and a harbinger of the Gothic
style that came to define British architecture for the next 500
years. De Sais was long dead before the project was complete, but
that didn't stop him.

Fast-forward to the US housing
bubble of 2008. Developers built McMansions for speculation.
Brokers bundled house values into mortgage-backed securities that
they could trade in a nanosecond. Sprawl ensued and build quality
was poor. Eventually the bubble burst, prices declined, and now we
are left with foreclosed homes that nobody wants. So what changed
in western culture between 1118 and 2008? How did we go from
building grand cathedrals to McMansions?

We lost track of time. Talk to any
leading thinker and they'll repeat the same refrain: it's all about
the big. We are in an era that needs to ask big questions, tackle
big issues, make use of big data. Big problem, though: big is not big enough. To tackle
the challenges of our day we must (re)introduce another dimension
-- time as well as space -- and plot these big problems and
their solutions along a broader time horizon.

It's a simple idea, but implementing
long-term global strategy is a profound challenge. Take climate
change. Every scientist will tell you that the actions of
individual citizens are not enough to stem rising global
temperatures. The proponents of big are right: only large
institutions with their vast supply chains and carbon footprint can
make an impact.

Too often, the price for long-term vision is
short-term ruin

Ari Wallach

However, there are significant
time-based institutional obstacles that stand in the way of
tackling climate change. A politician who reduces the proportion of
coal energy on the grid will face the wrath of the coal lobby and
the labour unions when campaigning for re-election. A CEO who seeks
to implement zero-energy operations might hurt profits over the
next handful of business cycles and meet the vengeance of seething
stockholders when quarterly earnings are
announced.

Imagine De Sais pitching his
100-year construction project to a contemporary board of directors.
Does anyone think it would get built? Too often, the price for
long-term vision is short-term ruin. And what's worse: most people
can't stomach the risk. So we continue to think big, but end up
acting short.

We need a framework for long-term strategy -- one
that is visionary yet goal-oriented. Without organising principles,
it will be impossible to corral the corporations and capitals of
the globe to tackle our significant long-term challenges.

To this end, I suggest "longpath".
It's a term that connotes long-term and goal-oriented strategies.
It can help leaders navigate the balance between short-term gain
and long-term ruin. A CEO might say: "That may be good for the
bottom line, but it poses significant risks to our
longpath."

Hopefully, the recent trend of big
will herald the emergence of a longpath mentality, as leaders begin
to recognise that the big challenges are also the long ones. We
need a new mechanism that will allow us to build our metaphorical
cathedrals. We need a mantra that can serve as a course corrector.
Let's call that mantra longpath.